Bahraini courts give prison sentences to 139 more activists

A Bahraini court has handed down prison sentences to 139 activists and stripped almost all of them of their nationality in a mass trial, which was quickly denounced by rights groups as a tool of repression in the hands of the ruling Al Khalifah regime against dissidents.

The High Criminal Court gave the men jail terms from three years to life in prison, Bahrain’s public prosecutor said Tuesday.

He said 69 of the defendants were given life sentences, while 39 others received 10 years in jail each. The citizenship of all but one of them was also revoked.

In a statement, Amnesty censured the latest mass trial as a “mockery of justice” and “mass arbitrary denaturalization.”

The rights group further said such citizenship revocations constitute “blatant violations of international law,” calling on the regime in Manama to “immediately stop relying on these unlawful measures as punishment.”